ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
Protecting the environment is an integral part of our vision of sustainable construction, a commitment that our teams convert into meaningful actions.
Innovating for Sustainable Construction
Improving the energy efficiency of structures, reducing CO2 emissions, protecting biodiversity and changing uses, such are our work priorities in terms of innovation.
Directly related to sustainable development, our innovation processes strengthen the partnerships that we forge with companies, laboratories, colleges and universities.
Combining all of these skills enables us to carry out a large number of future projects with significant added value. For example: the designing of insulating concretes (Thermedia 3.0) with Lafarge, optimisation of window insulation with Saint-Gobain. etc.
BIM (Building Information Modelling) also holds an important place in our R&D policy. We are already carrying out projects using this process through which information from the digital model is managed throughout the life of the structure: SEC Building. By significant progress made by companies and software publishers, the tools are now powerful enough to provide increasingly realistic images and real time interactions.
And because our employees have ideas that are often worth knowing and putting into action, we have set up a collaborative innovation process. Every 2 years a competition is organised and is bearing fruit: 183 dossiers were presented in 2017. A committee will select the best innovations and will provide the means to bring them to life.
Eco-design effective projects
Reducing our environmental impact starts right from the design stage of our projects. To guarantee compliance with eco-design principles, we rely on environmental certifications (BREEAM®, LEED®, HQE®, etc.) which are currently implemented on 66% of our building orders compared with 23% in 2007.
Various tools enable us to integrate eco-design into our projects:
- lifecycle analysis in order to quantify all of the environmental impacts of our products;
- The Polygreen database which lists over 5,500 construction products according to technical, health and environmental criteria, and also production sites and labels, the BiodiverCity® label created in 2013 with the International Biodiversity & Property Council (IBPC) in order to assess and promote property operations that take into account biodiversity in built-up areas for the benefit of users.
Building environmentally-friendly sites
After the design stage, we also pull out all the stops to limit our environmental impacts during the construction of buildings. In addition to this goal, we want to make sure that the projects are fully integrated into the territory, whilst respecting residents.
To provide our customers with the guarantee of building exemplary sites, in 2015 we created the internal environmental label, Ecosite®. Waste management, reduction of nuisances for residents, protection of biodiversity: these themes are addressed in line with the strictest environmental regulations and our sustainable development goals. In 2017, 68% of our eligible sites were labelled Ecosite®.
On the sites, environmental respect also, and above all, involves a collective awareness that we encourage through our prevention policy. Based on an ISO 14001 certified environmental management system, this process is used extensively in the field. In 2017, 91% of our activity was certified.
Building, operating and maintaining for controlled performance
Once the buildings have been delivered, we assist our customers up to controlling the consumptions of their structures. The aim is to guarantee real and no longer theoretical energy performance. This reflection exceeds the simple scope of the building and progressively extends to the district or city scale.
In practical terms, energy performance contracts (EPC) allow the user to see guaranteed energy consumption for his premises throughout the life of the contract. Now we working under the Implementing of EPC, which will be the first energy performance contract produced in social housing at Qanli Gol Project. It must be showing positive results. By the teoretical date following work and one year of heating, the residential building must receive more than 50% of energy savings. On top of that: savings and greater comfort for the tenants. In addition to the energy performance needs of structures, new equipment and service needs are emerging for users. In order to meet them, EnergyPass®, the social housing energy management system, provides tenants with an innovative energy consumption measurement and monitoring screen. At the same time, the offer is complemented with a tenant assistance and awareness-raising program as well as technical maintenance over several years in order to make the benefits sustainable.
DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYEES
Our employees are the primary players in the group’s goal of shaping a better life, therefore we have increasingly strict ideas as regards promoting their well-being. Ensuring the development and fulfilment of each and every one of them is a priority that guides our HR initiatives.
Ensure health and safety
Anchored in our corporate culture, our health and safety policy has a target of “zero accidents”. This is achieved through various prevention actions, which is the best way of limiting high-risk behaviors, through training and making our employees aware of their own responsibility. In 2017, awareness was raised with 600 employees and representatives during the shutdown of hundreds of sites for health and safety dedicated days.
This is demonstrated through various actions:
- training and accountability of our employees.
- improvement of the ergonomics with, in particular, the creation of skills centers in order to install ergonomic equipment on the sites, the development of grids for assessing postures and actions, or the rollout of a travelling event offering interactive workshops, warm-up sessions, talks or presentations on new equipment.
- controlling the efficiency of actions via our sustainable development process’s assessment system. The indicators retained for health and safety are the frequency rate (number of workplace accidents with time off work X 1,000,000/number of hours worked) and the degree of seriousness (number of days off work X 1000/number of hours worked). Their development is measured over time and published every year in the extra-financial reporting section of our annual report.
In parallel, we have established a psychosocial risk prevention procedure with:
- employee satisfaction surveys,
- a stress observatory with a dedicated telephone hotline,
- a questionnaire on mental health carried out during periodic examinations by the Occupational Health Physician.
As safety is a shared responsibility issue, we provide training on this procedure to all of our sub-contractor partners. Thus, within the framework of its partnership with AEC carried out important risk awareness work with its sub-contractors: unannounced site inspections, debriefings for site workers on the basis of photos taken during the inspection, and raising of awareness of specific risks, etc.
Ensuring equal opportunities and developing skills
To develop it, we have devised the Special Program which offers start-of-career opportunities to promising young graduates.
We are also committed to developing the skills of our employees, and this, regardless of their profile, with the greatest respect for diversity and equal opportunities. Also, so that our employees and management committee members understand all of the benefits of this policy, we have created a training course within the framework of our “Success in Diversity” program.
As gender mixing is a performance factor, we would like to develop the presence of women within our teams. To do this, we have implemented a gender mixing action plan that includes:
- training dedicated to raising managers’ awareness,
- the publication of a gender mixing guide,
- a dashboard monitoring the development of women within the Group.
In addition, since 2015, our HR managers must put forward at least one female candidate as soon as a position becomes available.
Developing cohesion and well-being in the workplace
The professional fulfilment of our employees drives performance. Therefore, we assist the careers of everyone of them as soon as they join the company. Within a context of continuous dialogue, each employee can benefit from our attractive voluntary training policy.
We also promote mobility projects, whether geographical or functional, for our employees. To help them with this process, we provide them with a our web site: Careers. In a few clicks, you can find in-house job vacancies and a great deal of practical information on our mobility assistance measures.